London's Perfect Scoundrel (12 page)

S
aint paced the length of the foyer. He should have given her five minutes to pack up her books and her instructors and leave, and nothing more. Apparently the tears of Evelyn Ruddick were his Achilles’ heel, however, and now all he could do was check his pocket watch every two minutes, and curse.

“She thinks I’m despicable,” he muttered, mimicking her indignant tone. “My presence makes her ill.”

No one said that to his face and got away with it. And certainly not someone he found interesting. Not that she interested him that much—it was just that he seldom spent time around anyone who seemed so…pure.

Too pure to wish to taint herself with his presence, obviously. Well, he would see about that. He would see her begging for him before he was finished with her. The angel would find herself considerably tattered—and everyone would know it.

He flipped open his pocket watch again. Two minutes
left. If she didn’t appear soon, he would go up and get her. Saint snapped the watch closed. In fact, why wait?

“Saint?”

He whipped around. Evelyn stood at the staircase, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving. “Get your books,” he snapped. “Time is up.”

She didn’t move. “I’ve been thinking.”

Suspicion washed through him. She didn’t look incapacitated with tears as he’d half expected, and she wasn’t pleading with him either to let her continue reforming the orphans or to stop his plans for destruction of the damned place. “About what?” he asked anyway.

“About…about how you said you never do anything for free.”

Evelyn was nervous—and that wasn’t all; he could practically smell the charged air between them. “And?” he prompted, all of his senses coming to attention.

She cleared her throat. “And I was wondering,” she said in a voice so quiet he had to strain to hear her, “what price you would ask to keep the orphanage open.”

Saint hadn’t stayed alive for this long by being a fool. The angel was up to something. On the other hand, if it involved the two of them being naked, he was all for it. Still…“I thought I made you ill.”

“Yes, well, I was angry.”

“And you’re not any longer?” He didn’t attempt to hide the skepticism in his voice.

“I don’t understand how you could close the orphanage,” Evelyn said slowly. “Your mother—”

“For God’s sake,” he interrupted, “if we’re talking about a seduction, don’t mention my mother.”

“My apologies,” she said with a nervous grimace. “I’m new to this.”

“To what?”

“You…you’re going to make me say it?”

He strolled up to her, abruptly in much less of a hurry to see her gone. “Yes, I am,” he replied, and kissed her.

She was going to make him promise things, no doubt, and if she timed it right, he would agree to whatever she said. Just talking to her about it left him hard and aching. Of course, he would also listen very carefully to how she worded her requests. Long experience had taught him there was more than one way to bed a woman—and more than one way to be rid of an orphanage.

He lifted his head, but Evelyn pursued him, raising up on her toes and twining her dainty fingers through his hair. She pulled his face down for another kiss. Almost of their own accord, his hands slid around her slender waist. He tugged her up against him.

“You still have to say it, Evelyn Marie,” he murmured. Her damned classrooms were the closest private place he could think of. The doors didn’t lock, but all the brats thought she’d gone. “Say it.”

“I…” she began breathlessly, her gaze on his mouth, “I want to know if you’ll stop your plan to tear down the orphanage if…if I…”

Sweet Lucifer
. Angels could be a frustrating, pitiful bunch. “If you take me inside you,” he whispered, pulling a clip softly from her hair. Auburn waves of lemon cascaded over his hands.

“Yes.”

Saint shook his head, removing the second clip. “Say it.”

Her cheeks flushed and, her lips already swollen from his attentions, her breasts pressed hard against his chest, the pristine angel moaned. “If I take you inside me,” she whispered.

Difficult as logical thought was becoming, he was nevertheless aware that her choice of phrase regarding the orphanage left him a fair amount of room to maneuver. “That is a deal, Evelyn.”

“Not here, though,” she said, gasping as he brushed the outside of her breasts with his thumbs. “The children—”

“How about one of your little classrooms?” He captured her mouth again, only partially aware that he didn’t usually react like this. Of course, he’d been suffering through a nearly three-week drought, but this lust, this hunger, was new. And it was hunger for
her
—not some nameless, faceless female to satisfy his needs.

“No. Oh, Saint. More private. Please?”

She wasn’t even able to utter full sentences any longer. “The boardroom.”

“The cellar,” she countered. “It’s after breakfast, and—”

“The cellar,” he agreed, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the stairs. A clean patch of dirt would have suited him at the moment.

“But my hair,” she protested.

“We’ll go down the back way. No one will see you.”

Because of its history as a barracks, two sets of stairs descended into the cellar; the ones from the kitchen, and the ones through the old administrative office for keeping a tally of supplies as they arrived.

Saint grabbed a lamp from the hallway and pushed the office door open. “Are you sure this won’t do?” he asked, yanking her up against him for another kiss. Thank God she’d decided to give in, because he wasn’t certain how much longer he would have been able to keep his hands off her without going stark, raving mad.

“Windows,” she managed, clinging to his lapels.

“I’m going to make you scream with pleasure,” he whispered against her mouth.

If they paused here much longer, he, who prided himself on his self-control, wouldn’t be able to walk. Saint took her hand again to lead her through the far door and down the stairs.

As soon as they reached the cellar floor, he pressed her back against the stone wall, meeting her upturned mouth with a hot, openmouthed kiss. Finally, just the two of them, with no one to interrupt for at least an hour, until the kitchen help began luncheon preparations.

“Evelyn,” he groaned, kissing her throat, peeling back the collar of her gown to kiss her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Saint,” she whispered, her breath coming already in hard, fast gasps.

Sliding one arm back around her waist, he pulled her up against him. “What are you sorry for?” he breathed, kissing her again.

“It’s for your own good.”

“What—”

A footstep sounded behind him. Saint whipped around as something blunt and heavy crashed down against the side of his skull. He uttered a half-articulate curse and collapsed.

Evelyn stared down at the Marquis of St. Aubyn as he lay slumped at her feet. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think of anything. They couldn’t change their minds now, and yet in the hot, sensual place Saint had awakened inside her, she almost wished they had been alone in the cellar, and that he’d fulfilled his promise to make her scream with pleasure.

Randall lowered the oak bedpost. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a year, now.”

Shaking herself out of her nervous, aroused, and shocked stupor, Evie sank to her knees. “He’s still breathing,” she exclaimed, sagging further with relief. Aggravating as St. Aubyn was, she didn’t want him dead. Even the thought left her feeling oddly…empty with imagined loss.

“A course he’s still breathing,” Randall said in an annoyed tone, obviously disgusted that she could doubt his expertise in the field of head-bashing. “Let’s get him in the brig before Nosy Nelly comes down to steal apples.”

“Nosy Nelly?” Evie repeated, brushing hair from Saint’s forehead as another half dozen children materialized from the gloom around her. A trickle of blood ran past his ear, and she checked again to make sure his heart still beat. He looked so…innocent, with his face relaxed and the cynicism gone from his expression. Innocent, and beautiful. The most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

“One of the cook’s helpers. Come on, lads. Heave ’im up. If we drag ’im, we’ll leave tracks.”

Randall seemed to know a great deal about kidnapping. Evie stood, stepping back as the six oldest boys grabbed legs, arms, and waist and, with much groaning and complaining, lifted St. Aubyn off the floor.

“Be careful with him,” Evie cautioned, lifting a candle to guide them to the narrow, half-hidden door.

“Now you say that,” Matthew grunted. “Just think what he’d be doin’ to us right now if he was still awake.”

Evelyn shuddered. Even knowing his seduction would be stopped, she still felt dazed and a little resentful. Saint was going to be furious. According to rumor, he’d killed people in duels over slights to his honor; this must fall somewhere far beyond that.

They’d thrown a fairly decent mattress and clean
blankets in the far corner, batted down the spiders and cobwebs, and stolen two lamps for the wall sconces. With less than fifteen minutes to prepare, they’d actually done an impressive job of readying the room for a resident.

The boys tossed St. Aubyn onto the mattress with less care than she would have liked. The marquis groaned.

“Cripes! Get the shackle on him!” Adam Henson yelped, jumping backward.

“Wait!” Evie broke in, struggling free of the haze that had enveloped her. “Don’t hurt him!”

“Too late now, Miss Evie. He’ll see us all on prison barges or transported to Australia.”

“Or hanged,” Randall added, squatting to fasten the shackle.

“Do we at least have a key for that?” she asked, beginning to feel light-headed.

“Aye. And for the door.”

“Give them both to me, if you please.”

Matthew obediently handed the brass keys over to her. Evelyn pocketed them and sat heavily on the stool. Good heavens, what was she doing? Kidnapping a marquis was worse than insanity. On the other hand, without her involvement, Randall and the other boys might have chosen a more permanent and deadly solution to the problem of St. Aubyn. With her in possession of the keys, she could at least protect him to a degree.

“He’s waking up,” Adam announced.

“All right, everyone out. I don’t want him to know who hit him. And close the doors, but leave a candle on the stairs. Don’t do or say anything out of the ordinary.”

Randall grinned. “We’ll make a criminal of you yet, Miss Evie.”

She didn’t seem to need their help with that. “Go. Hurry.”

Seconds after they closed the barred door, Saint came awake with an abrupt start that made Evie jump. With a low, almost inaudible groan, he rolled onto his hands and knees.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice shaking as badly as her hands had begun to.

“What the hell happened?” he grumbled, putting a hand to his temple. It came away bloody.

“It’s a long story. Do you need medical assistance?” They couldn’t summon a doctor, of course, unless Saint’s injury was life-threatening. If pressed, she could probably sew up a wound, though even the thought made her distinctly queasy.

“No. What I need is a pistol. Who hit me?” Slowly he straightened up onto his knees, looking across the room at her where she perched on the stool.

“I can’t tell you that. Saint—”

As his gaze sharpened and focused, he began looking at their surroundings. “Where are we? Are you unhurt?”

“Me? I’m fine. I need to—”

Staggering, one hand pressed against the wall for balance, Saint climbed to his feet. “Don’t worry, Evelyn. I’ll get us out of here.”

Oh, dear
. Now he wanted to be chivalrous. “Saint, you don’t understand. I’m not a prisoner. You are.”

She watched as he slowly absorbed what she’d said. Then, faster than she could draw a breath to explain, he sprang across the room at her. “You damned—”

The chain snapped taut, and he went down almost at her feet. With a shriek, Evelyn fell backward off the stool. Saint reached for her, and only missed her ankle because she jerked her knees up to her chest.

“Stop that! You’ll injure yourself!” she gasped, rolling to crawl away from him as fast as she could. Her gown was going to be ruined, but if he got his hands on her, her clothes would be the least of her worries.

The keys fell from her pocket with a thunk. Evie squirmed around as Saint lunged for them. The chain pulled him up just short. He clawed into the hard-packed earth, stretching out his fingertips, trying to reach them as she snatched them up and scooted backward again.

“Give me those damned keys,” he growled in a dark, angry voice.

This was the St. Aubyn everyone feared, she realized, the man he was with the veneer of civility torn away. And she’d managed to awaken him alone in a dungeon, with no help in earshot—not that she dared call for any.

“Calm down,” she ordered, backing away still farther, even though there was no way he could possibly reach her.

He drew up into an alert crouch, green eyes glittering with a fury that made her blood chill. “‘Calm down?’” he snarled, swiping again at the dirt-mingled blood running down his cheek. “I’m shackled to a wall, God knows where, and—”

“We’re in the orphanage cellar,” she interrupted. “The old brig, I would assume.” She sat up straighter, pocketing the keys again.

His eyes followed every move she made. “Why am I shackled to the wall in the goddamned orphanage cellar, Evelyn?” he asked in a low, dangerous-sounding growl. “And who hit me?”

He obviously wasn’t going to be able to listen to reason at the moment. If anything, trying to speak in a rational manner with him would only make him angrier.
Evie reached behind her for the wall and pulled herself to her feet. “I think you should calm down a little, Saint,” she suggested, wishing her voice would stop shaking. “I’ll bring you some water and a cloth for your head.” She edged toward the door.

He straightened, pacing her at the end of his chain. “You are not going to leave me here, damn it. Evelyn, this is ridiculous. Give me those keys.
Now
.”

“I can’t do that. And I’m not leaving you. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”